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| Ruins of the medieval fortification
called "Steinscloss" in Styria, Austria ~ © Herbert Raab |
Herbert Raab lives in Austria, in a small village, about 25 km south of the city of Linz. He loves to capture the beauty of the night sky, and share it with
other people. "A lot of people live in light polluted areas and many of
them are unaware of that beauty. I hope that images like mine will help
to make people aware that a dark, natural sky is a wonder of nature that
needs to be preserved."
Finding TWAN: Herbert has been interested in astronomy since he was a little boy. After seeing a presentation by the German TWAN photographer, Stefan Seip
in 2009, he realized that digital imaging technology has enabled us to
capture that beauty, and he decided to try to take TWAN style images himself. TWAN ("The World At Night") is a pool of photographers from around
the world that tries to capture the beauty of the night sky over
different landscapes. These images are displayed on the
TWAN web site. "Personal contacts with some of the TWAN photographers (including
the founder of TWAN, Babak Tafreshi), have inspired me a lot," says Herbert.
In the above image Herbert spent much of the night in the ruins of this medieval fortification, with bats as his only
companions. It was an intense experience, still etched in his memory! A stack of 40 individual
frames, each of 60 seconds exposure time (using a Canon EOS 550D, Sigma
10mm fisheye, f/3.5, ISO 800), resulting in a total exposure of 40 minutes. The
ruins and the landscape were illuminated by the first quarter moon.
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| "Harvest Time" is a stack 38 individual frames, each of 60 seconds exposure time ~ © Herbert Raab |
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"This group of trees is located not far away from the place where I live," says Mr. Raab.
"I have passed these trees almost daily for years before I finally
recognized that they would make a nice foreground for a star trails
image." He used a Canon EOS 550D at ISO 1600, with a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens at 50mm, f/4.0.
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| "Twilight" is a panoramic image composed of
three single exposures of 20 seconds each ~ © Herbert Raab |
When bright planets align in the sky, Herbert feels it's always a great time to do
some night photography. In this image, Venus and Jupiter form an
eye-catching pair in the evening twilight. Some of the brightest stars in the sky
appear left of the two planets, including Betelgeuse and Riegel in the
constellation Orion, as well as Sirius, Procyon and Aldebaran. This composite pano was taken with a Canon EOS 550D
at ISO 1600, and the Tokina 11mm lens @ f/4.0, with a Cokin P830 diffuser.
The Milky Way is sometimes described as "a river of stars".
In this picture, it looks as if a boat would be ready for a ride on
that river of stars. In a dark, moonless night, the Milky Way can be a spectacular sight. "Unfortunately," laments Herbert, "An increasing number of people who live under light-polluted skies have never seen the Milky Way." This is
a single, 60 second exposure, taken with a Canon EOS 550D, at ISO 3200,
using a Sigma 10mm fisheye lens @ f/2.8.
Technique and Tools: "Interestingly, many people think that night images require heavy image
processing. Actually, that is not the case. In most cases, some tweaks
during the RAW-conversion is all I do --with color balance and noise
reduction being the most important," says Raab. He uses Adobe Camera Raw as his main post processing software, with
ImageStacker for stacking star trail images, and PTGui for blending panoramas. Other than his Canon EOS
550D (A.K.A. the Rebel T2i in the USA, and the EOS Kiss X4 in Japan), he finds his Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
wide angle lens, with the Cokin P830 diffuser in front, as his most valuable pieces of equipment.
Balancing life and photography: Herbert considers being at the right place at the right time as his biggest challenge in doing TWAN photography.
"Considering the facts that I have a full daytime job, a family with
three small kids, and that the weather here in central Europe is not
always very cooperative, every night I can spend under the stars is a
small miracle by itself," reports Herbert.
TWAN photography giving balance to life: He has observed that watching the stars slowly move across the sky is a counterpart to the
busy, fast-paced world around us. Herbert sometimes philosophies about the photons that have crossed the universe for hundreds or thousands of years, that are now captured by his camera. "Every time I look at those photos that I
took in such a night, the calmness returns," he says.
More of Herbert Raab's photography can be found on his
Flickr Photostream.
